This dense and beautiful bush extends for miles on every side; its solitary depths impassable except to Kaffirs and wild beasts, hundreds of which latter roam through it undisturbed. Tigers, hyænas, wild-cats, and jackals abound; and buffaloes and elephants are still occasionally seen, of which we had convincing evidence in the fresh spoor of three of the latter, whose enormous foot-prints were distinctly visible, and made one's heart beat with excitement at the idea of being in a country where such noble beasts roamed wild and unrestrained. The waggon track was in many parts very beautiful, sometimes so narrow that the overhanging trees, covered with festoons of grey pendant lichen, met above it; in others, opening out into smooth green lawn-like patches, surrounded by brilliantly flowered trees and shrubs (as the crimson boerboon,[3] and the yellow mimosa, with its gigantic milk-white thorns); everywhere clusters of the beautiful pale blue plumbago, with numberless aloes and occasional euphorbias, rising to the height of thirty feet; the underwood filled with the "stapelia," "gasteria," and other varieties of cactus. The heat of the sun was again most oppressive, shut in as we were between walls of bush, so close, that not a breath of air found its way through. The oxen were so completely done up, that they could scarcely draw the heavily-laden waggons through the deep sand, and numbers fell, to die on the roadside, or were abandoned a prey to the wild beasts and vultures. Halting for half an hour to rest the cattle at the top of a heavy hill, a lovely view presented itself: in the foreground, the road we had just passed, winding down into the bush below; beyond that, a vast extent of flat, thickly-wooded country; and far off, a fine chain of rugged mountains, mellowed by the purple atmosphere of the distance, into a mistlike softness. Late in the day, we entered on an extensive grassy plain, affording a grateful relief to the eye, after the close smothering road through the bush. Three distant specks on the vast level proved, when we came up, to be as many waggons outspanned by a large "vley" or pool of water; their owners, a company of traders, cooking supper and smoking their pipes, looked a picture of ease and comfort, strongly contrasted with our dusty and way worn appearance. We saw several "duykerbok," and encamped at sunset, driving in our last tent-pegs by the light of a beautiful moon.